


Things are better when we're together

by aces_low



Series: Unlocked Doors [1]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Drinking, Dumb boys being self conscious and dumb, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, New Relationship, Sex Talk, Virgin Ray, Walking In On Someone, then have a very frank discussion about sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 17:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12173253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces_low/pseuds/aces_low
Summary: Ray and Nate have only been together a few weeks and Ray is sure Nate has made some kind of mistake deciding to be with him. A misunderstanding between them finally forces them to have a frank discussion about their feelings. Also about sex.





	Things are better when we're together

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, this was supposed to be the first installment of the 'Unlocked Doors' series. I was about halfway done writing this one when Perfect Fit came to me and I couldn't stop writing it. 
> 
> In the timeline of this series, this one takes place before Perfect Fit. I can't promise it will be the first chronologically as the series goes along though. I have lots of plans for these boys.
> 
> This is not meant to be a representation of the real men, just based on the characters of the HBO series.

“So, why aren’t we going to Brad’s place tonight?” Walt asks, attempting to sound nonchalant, but Ray knows he’s feeling agitated.

“We don’t need to hang out there every night,” Ray tells him, dealing out the cards on Walt’s bed so they can play their own two-person drinking game, sharing one can of beer. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to mercilessly flirt with Brad next weekend.”

Walt glares but doesn’t deny it. How could he? Ever since Ray had introduced the two, Walt has taken to openly and unabashedly flirting with Brad, who is too emotionally constipated to know how to handle it. Brad isn’t one for relationships, choosing to only partake in one night stands with random strangers and classmates. With Walt though, they’re both clearly interested, but neither is willing to be the one to finally just go for it with each other. If Ray wasn’t so amused by his two best friends’ struggles he’d be seriously annoyed.

“Don’t you want to see Nate?” Walt tries, and Ray picks up the cards he’s just dealt.

“He’s working on a paper tonight.”

“Oh, so that’s why you don’t want to go, cause Nate’s busy.”

Ray doesn’t dignify that with a response.

“Ya know, since you two started dating we’ve gone over to their place way less than we used to,” Walt says, not accusatory, just as a passing consideration, but Ray feels his stomach tighten at the implication.

“That’s not true,” he tries to deny, even though he knows it definitely is true.

The problem is that before, the house had been ‘Brad’s place’ in Ray’s mind. Brad’s place plus his roommates, one of whom Ray had a raging heart boner for since the moment he’d seen those clear green eyes. By some miracle, after knowing Ray a whole year, instead of Nate insisting to Brad that he didn’t want Ray around anymore, he’d gone and asked Ray out.

Ray, along with the rest of their friends, had been extremely surprised. At first, he’d thought it must have been an uncharacteristically cruel joke Nate had been pulling. He’d even had an escape plan all mapped out when they’d gone on their first date. But the whole night had been fun, and sweet, and maybe eye-rolling levels of cheesy if it hadn’t been Nate he had been with. Ray still hadn’t been fully convinced that this wasn’t just an experiment that Nate was conducting for a Psych class he was taking. But when he’d kissed Ray it had felt real and Ray decided he should just give Nate the benefit of the doubt, or at least enjoy it before Nate’s common sense returned and he remembered he could do a lot better than Ray.

It has only been a few weeks and Ray can admit to himself that he’s been trying to play it cool, not wanting to fuck up too soon and prompt the inevitable end to the relationship with the best boyfriend he’ll probably ever have. 

So, while he used to go to Brad’s place almost every day, regardless if Brad was around or anyone actually wanted him there, now that it’s ‘Nate’s place’ to Ray, he feels less allowed to just barge in unannounced, especially when Nate has already told him that he wouldn’t be around much tonight. 

“You don’t need to hang out with Nate, you and Brad are still best friends,” Walt reminds him, clearly not buying the half-hearted denial Ray is selling to him. 

“I know that.”

“Ok, then let’s go.” Walt grins and gets up from his bed, moving to grab his wallet and keys from his desk.

Ray hesitates for another moment but reminds himself that he isn’t going to be bothering Nate, who will most likely be holed up in his room, before getting up and following Walt out of their dorm.

 

“Hey, hey, dry those tears, cause Ray-Ray is in the hizzouse!” Ray exclaims as they walk through the perpetually unlocked door of the house.

“Ya know, I was actually just getting used to not hearing your voice in my house every damn day,” Poke yells from the kitchen.

Ray grins and makes his way over to the couch, where Brad is focused on the video game he’s playing.

“Bradley,” Ray says in greeting, before throwing himself onto the couch.

“Ray,” Brad replies, not looking up from his game.

“Hi, Brad,” Walt greets him pleasantly, sitting down next to Ray after shoving his feet off the couch.

Brad’s eyes flicker away from the screen for just a moment. 

“Walt,” he says stiffly, returning his focus to his game.

Ray can’t help but grin and roll his eyes.

Poke walks in, holding a few cans of beer and tosses each of them one. Brad looks up just in time to catch his before it hits him in the face.

“Yo, Person, what’d you do to your boyfriend? He hasn’t been out of his room all day,” Poke says, taking a seat on one of the armchairs.

“He’s working on a paper,” Ray explains, watching the TV as Brad shoots his way through some desert town.

Poke shakes his head. “He’s the only guy I know who does homework on a Saturday. Doesn’t he know that’s what Sundays are for?”

 

They all sit and watch Brad’s game for a while until Kocher walks in through the front door, huffing and swearing.

“Professor fucking McGraw is going to get punched in the face one of these days if he keeps setting up office hours on weekends. And I hope to God it’s me that does it.”

He speaks to no one in particular and doesn’t stop his trek straight into the kitchen.

“I need to get drunk,” he tells them after grabbing a beer from the fridge and joining them all back in the living room.

“Rudy and Pappy went home to Pap’s place for the weekend,” Brad responds, still not looking away from the screen. “But I’m sure Garza would be in.”

“I can text Stafford, he’ll probably bring Christeson with him,” Walt offers.

“I don’t care, I don’t need a party, I just need alcohol immediately. And lots of it,” Kocher says, before chugging down his first can.

“I’m telling Stafford to bring some,” Walt says, looking down at his phone.

“We can make a run. Everyone, cough up some money,” Poke says, pointing to the coffee table.

 

Less than an hour later, they’re all – including Garza, Stafford, and Christeson – gathered around the living room, setting up the beer pong table.

Stafford and Kocher pour out the beer into each of the red solo cups as Brad searches through their box of drinking supplies for a ping pong ball, with Walt pretending to help. Ray, Garza, and Poke work on pouring shots for everyone, or more accurately, Ray and Garza had been before Poke took over, claiming they were going to ruin it before it began.

Ray needs to keep his hands busy, because every few minutes his eyes drift over to the kitchen, off of which is Nate’s room. He has to physically restrain himself from going to see Nate, and he’s aware that the more he drinks the less likely he’ll be to stop himself from doing just that. He doesn’t want Nate to think he’s always going to be bothering him, or that he’s so obsessed that he just comes over to his place without being invited. He steels his resolve, he can be good for a night, he can try to not be annoying. For Nate, it’s worth it. 

 

Having two shots in him, he’s relaxed some, and while his thoughts haven’t completely moved on from his boyfriend who is alone in his room working, probably using his noise-canceling headphones to drown out the sound of his roommates. But currently, most of his mental faculties are being used to rant about the Moonies being behind the current political climate in America. He’s just getting to the point of his rant, or what he thinks is probably the point, since he’s making this theory up on the spot, when he feels arms wrap around his middle.

He tenses for a moment, still used to going on the defensive from a younger life filled with bullies. But before he can move away, he hears Nate’s smooth voice in his ear.

“Hey, did you just get here?” Nate asks, and Ray can hear the smile in his voice.

Having Nate touch him so easily is still new to him and he can feel his heart pick up speed just from the warmth around his middle and the slight breath against his ear. He turns and steps away, not wanting to stutter out a response in front of the group of guys that will have no qualms about pointing it out.

“Nah, we came over a couple hours ago,” Ray tells him, unable to stop himself from grinning just a little when he glances up at Nate.

Though instead of the grin he could hear before, he sees Nate’s eyebrows furrow for a moment before smoothing his features out again.

He kind of wants to kiss Nate, but he’s questioning everything again. He’s not sure if he should in front of their friends or not, he doesn’t really care what they think, but Nate might and he doesn’t want to do anything to make him uncomfortable. It’s one thing for him to be seen dating someone like Nate Fick, it’s another thing entirely for Nate to be seen with Ray. He knows they’ve all pulled Nate aside at some point to ask him what he’s thinking with Ray, it’s just a matter of time before one of them talks some sense into him.

“Oh,” is all Nate ends up saying before ducking his head and moving over to grab one of the beers they’ve set out.

“Yeah, I uh- I just came over so Walt could flirt with Brad and Brad could stare at Walt all night,” Ray explains.

“Ray, shut up,” Brad says, sounding exasperated, but Ray isn’t wrong and they all know it, so Brad can’t even argue.

Ray smirks and looks over at his friends who have been sitting next to each other for the last hour, talking but not getting any further, as usual. Walt just shakes his head at him and Brad glares but Ray figures if it gets them to move even a fraction of a step forward it’s worth their anger. He shrugs his shoulder and looks back at Nate, who is tapping his finger rhythmically against the can of beer in his hand as his eyes go over the room of his friends.

Nate nods and looks back down to Ray. “Sure, well I’ll just leave you to it then.”

He sends a short wave out to the others before making his way back through the kitchen to his room.

Ray tries to not drop his shoulders in disappointment, he’d hoped Nate would decide to abandon the paper for the night to hang out with him instead. 

He takes a second to make sure the frown is off his face before he turns back toward the room to continue where he’d left off, though he can’t really remember his point anymore.

All his friends are looking at him expectantly though and he knows it’s not because they want him to keep talking.

“What?”

“You’re not gonna go after him?” Walt asks.

“Go after him? He went to his room.”

“That’s cold, dawg,” Poke says, shaking his head and taking a drink of the cup that Christeson had just shot into.

“He’s working on a paper,” Ray reminds them.

None of them look convinced and Ray is shocked that they’re actually encouraging him to go annoy someone.

Even though he’s had a few drinks, he’s not buzzed enough to not have noticed Nate’s frown, or that it could have only been caused by him. So, he sighs and makes his way into the kitchen, using the small bit of liquid courage inside of him to confront Nate.

Nate’s voice is soft behind his door when Ray knocks and says that he can come in. He’s sitting on his bed, frowning down at his laptop when Ray opens the door.

“Hey,” Ray says awkwardly, closing the door behind him, but not walking further into the room.

Nate’s smile is forced and he just looks back down to his computer.

Ray is usually never at a loss for words, but when it comes to Nate lately he feels like the filter that everyone always wants him to have is working at full force.

“So, how’s your paper coming?”

“I’m done, just need to do another edit tomorrow and then I can turn it in,” Nate tells him, not looking up.

Ray whistles. “I don’t think I’ve ever finished a paper more than a few hours before it was due, let alone with enough time to edit it.”

That makes Nate grin for real for a moment. “And you still probably always get an A,” he says almost fondly before he quickly looks back down.

Nate’s tone, that fondness that he always seems to have when he’s talking about him, never fails to make Ray’s stomach do somersaults. He has no idea what he’s done to deserve so much fondness from Nate Fick.

Ray can’t deny Nate’s claims, he doesn’t work nearly as hard as Nate does, but he also has never really had problems with school work. It’s different in college, where Ray’s constant desire to talk with a teacher about a topic is praised, where in high school and grade school it just got in him trouble and hated by the rest of his classmates. Ray had never had a problem with learning the material, it had always been the structure of school that caused him problems, college has been great for Ray. And not just academically.

He’s never had good friends the way he does now. He’d met Brad his freshman year, and though Brad is a year older he’d taken Ray under his wing and brought him into his friend group where he’d been accepted far easier than he’s ever experienced. And he’d gotten lucky with Walt, finding someone in his own year to live in the dorms with, who actually enjoyed hanging out with him.

And now, he has Nate. Ray doesn’t even need a full hand to count the number of relationships he’s been in, so while the academic part of going to college has been a breeze, knowing what to do in a relationship is a completely foreign problem for him. Unfortunately, it’s the one thing he really doesn’t want to fail at.

“Are you mad at me?” he finally asks, after they’ve sat in silence for over a minute.

That makes Nate snap his head up. “No.”

“Ok…then why’re you in here instead of out there?”

Nate bites his lip and looks past Ray, settling his eyes on the door behind him. He chews on his lip for a few seconds, something churning behind his eyes that Ray doesn’t understand before he just shakes his head, his ears a bright shade of red – an adorable look Nate gets when he’s embarrassed - and goes back to his computer again.

Ray sighs because if Nate doesn’t want to talk to him he’s not going to push him. His denial at being mad at Ray seemed sincere, so he’s not going to do anything to make it so that Nate does get mad at him.

“Well, then I guess I’ll go, leave you to it?” he says, though the idea of drinking and hanging out while Nate stews in his room doesn’t appeal to Ray anymore. He may just go back to his dorm room for the night. 

“Fine,” Nate says, not looking back up, and there’s a finality to it that makes Ray’s stomach churn. He wishes he knew what he was doing here, wishes he wasn’t so worried about fucking up that he could actually say something. He also sort of wishes he’d had more to drink before because he feels completely sober and that’s not helping his mind from racing.

This boyfriend shit really isn’t turning out the way he’d expected. 

Ray turns to leave, hand on the doorknob when Nate speaks up again.

“Wait. I’m being an asshole. I’m sorry.”

He turns back around and just barely stops himself from agreeing.

Nate is looking up again, though his head is ducked and he looks like a toddler about to be scolded.

The lack of eye contact, the weird behavior, Ray can’t help but be reminded of his first girlfriend, back in seventh grade, looking just like Nate is now when she’d dumped him after just two weeks. She’d pulled him off to a side hallway at school to explain to him that all her friends were making fun of her and she couldn’t keep dating him anymore. 

His stomach drops, remembering that moment, realizing that this must be what’s happening now. He really can’t be that surprised, he’d known from the beginning it was just a matter of time. That knowledge doesn’t make it feel any less like the acid in his stomach is making its way up his esophagus.

“I know that you and Brad are best friends,” Nate continues, not waiting for Ray to ask him what’s going on again. “And I really don’t want to get in the middle of that.”

That makes Ray pause because that’s not exactly where he’d expected Nate’s break-up speech to go. He wishes Nate would just get it out so that he can go hide his face from everyone before they can tell him that they knew this was going to happen, but is Nate really trying to use Ray’s friendship with Brad as the reason?

Or, his traitorous mind supplies, maybe Nate has another reason to bring up Brad.

As much as he knows that’s unlikely there’s still a sharp pang in his chest at the idea of it. 

“Are you fucking Brad?” Ray asks, and it appears his filter is now gone.

Nate’s eyes go wide. “What?”

“Is this because I’m a virgin? Need I remind you that _you’re_ the one that said we could go slow, if you wanted to do more you could’ve just told me. Fuck, of all people why did it have to be Brad, though?” Ray starts pacing in the tiny amount of space provided in Nate’s small room.

For his part, Nate begins struggling to get up off his bed, fumbling with the charger cord on his computer before he’s able to gracelessly hop off the bed and step in front of Ray to stop his pacing.

“Ray, calm down. I’m not fucking Brad, why the hell would you think that?”

“Then why are you breaking up with me?”

“I’m not breaking up with you.”

Ray blinks and thinks back over what’d been said, and yeah, no he maybe overreacted there.

“Oh,” is all he says in response.

“You don’t think I’d actually break up with you over sex, do you?” Nate asks, reaching down to take Ray’s hand in his own.

“Not just sex, no.” Now it’s Ray’s turn to avoid eye contact.

Nate grabs Ray’s elbow with his other hand and leads him toward the bed. 

“What in anything I said made you think I wanted to break up? I know I was being kind of an asshole but…” Nate trails off and guides Ray to sit down next to him. While still holding Ray's hand, Nate uses his other hand to pick up his laptop and place it on the desk beside his bed.

Ray huffs and rubs at his eyes with the hand that isn’t still being held.

“I was just being stupid, ignore me,” he tries, not really wanting to throw all his insecurities at Nate at once. 

He’s already revealed his near constant worry about his lack of sexual experience. Other than a guy on the debate team his senior year of high school and a guy his first week at college – hand stuff, and a partial blowjob by him that had not been reciprocated, respectively – Ray is pretty inexperienced in the sex department. Nate knows all this and has assured him that they can go at whatever pace Ray is comfortable with. 

The problem is that Ray talks a big game in front of anyone that will listen, and even to those that don’t, but he has no idea what he’s doing and he kind of needs Nate to take control a little and just tell him what to do. Unfortunately, Nate is all respectful and patient and perfect and wants Ray to set the pace. They’ve only gone so far as a couple heavy make-out sessions, where Nate will ask him what he wants, and Ray’s brain isn’t able to come up with anything more coherent than stuttered words of “whatever you want,” which is not what Nate wants to hear, causing him to slow down and back off. 

“If it’s enough to think that I’m breaking up with you, and cheating on you with Brad, then it’s not stupid. Talk to me, please.”

Nate grabs Ray’s chin with his thumb and finger maneuvering him to look over and up at him. Ray can see the worry behind those pretty green eyes and he can’t help but blurt out, “I mean why wouldn’t you, right?”

Nate cocks his head and furrows his eyebrows, studying Ray’s eyes for a moment before letting Ray’s chin go.

“Why wouldn’t I what? Break up with you? Cheat on you?” he asks with a frown.

“All of the above?” Ray tries to grin and shrug, but he’s sure the grin looks more like a grimace.

Nate continues to just stare and Ray feels like now that his filter is down he has almost no ability to stop himself from just blurting out the truth.

“It’s not like we make sense together, Nate. And sooner or later you’ll realize that I’m just an obnoxious asshole and dump me for someone who’s actually in your league.”

The frown on Nate’s face somehow gets even deeper and he pulls his hand away from where it’s been holding Ray’s, and just that small movement feels like a punch in the gut.

“I’m a shitty boyfriend,” Nate says, looking out towards the room instead of at Ray.

That shocks Ray out of any pity he may be feeling for himself. “What? No, you’re not. Dude, you’re like the best boyfriend.”

But Nate just shakes his head. “No, if I was a good boyfriend you wouldn’t be feeling so insecure, and I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” Nate says, turning to look at Ray again. His eyes are glassy and Ray feels a little panicked at the sight.

“Hey, no, you didn’t do anything. This is all just shit in my head right now. You haven’t done anything to make me feel insecure,” Ray assures him, reaching out for Nate now. And it’s true, Nate hasn’t done or said anything to make Ray feel unwanted or like he was doing Ray a favor by dating him. All of it has come from Ray’s own insecurities and past experiences, and he’s nearly fucked it all up for what seems to be no reason.

Nate bites his lip and shakes his head but then meets Ray’s eyes again. “Do you remember the night you took too many of those ‘caffeine’ pills?”

Ray pauses, narrowing his eyes at Nate for bringing that up right now, but he nods slowly. Though ‘remember’ is a generous word. He’d gotten the pills off a classmate and he’d figured out pretty quickly that at least some of what he’d taken had definitely not been caffeine pills.

The part he does remember is somehow ending up at Nate’s place - though it had been Brad’s place to him at the time – at three in the morning, in nothing but a sarong and Ugg boots, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart. He remembers Brad attempting to get him to shut the hell up when Ray had seen Nate in the kitchen doorway looking sleepy and disheveled and absolutely adorable and he couldn’t stop himself from grabbing Nate and dancing him around the kitchen and living room. He remembers Poke yelling, and Brad attempting to extract Ray’s hold on Nate, and Nate, Ray remembers, had been laughing and allowing himself to be led around his house at three in the morning on a Wednesday. The next thing he remembers is waking up in Brad’s bed, drooling on his pillow. He never did find out who he’d stolen the boots and sarong from.

Ray remembers that night mainly because none of his friends have let him forget about it in the last two months since it happened. Why Nate feels it’s relevant to what they’re talking about now, he has no idea.

“That’s when I decided I was going to ask you out,” Nate says, a small grin breaking through the frown he’s been sporting.

Ray narrows his eyes. “Really, _that_ night?” Not believing it for a second.

But Nate just nods. “It took me a little bit to work up the nerve to do it,” he says, ignoring Ray’s scoff at the idea that Nate had ever been nervous to ask him out. “But after that night I realized that I’ve never met anyone who makes me laugh as much as you do.”

Nate punctuates his words with looking at Ray with such open sincerity in his eyes that Ray feels a little lightheaded, almost like Nate had said ‘I love you’ or something.

“I like talking to you,” Nate continues. “You’re smart and interesting. You look at the world differently than I’m used to and you challenge me to think past my own limited viewpoint. And I guess I should have said all this when we first got together. In my mind, it was obvious that I’d been into you for a while, but I guess I hadn’t really considered it from your perspective. I guess I was too worried you just saw me as Brad’s lame friend that you were going to laugh in my face when I asked.”

Ray is stunned, genuinely shocked that Nate had been at all worried that Ray wouldn’t be into him.

“Nate, you know you’re a total hottie, right?” Ray asks sincerely.

Nate huffs, trying to keep the smile off his face.

“I’m serious though, you’re like dream boyfriend material. Like, ‘take you home to meet the parents then fuck in the childhood bedroom’ material.” Nate rolls his eyes but Ray continues. “Sure, you’re a complete nerd, you have opinions on pens that are way too strong, and you own a calculator watch unironically, but somehow you’re still cool. You’re actually one of the very few people I know that it’s fun to talk to, even though you know way more about some dude named Thales from Jesus’ time than about any relevant celebrity that’s-” 

Ray cuts himself off when Nate coughs and mumbles something under his breath.

“What was that?”

“I just said that he was way before Jesus’ time,” Nate says with a shrug.

“Oh, my god.”

Nate grimaces.

“This! You’re so lame, yet still somehow cool and I have no idea how you do it. But really, you’re not a shitty boyfriend. I just…it just doesn’t make any sense why you’d be into me. You know nobody else understands it either, right? It’s not just me,” Ray explains. “But…I’m not gonna keep questioning it and ruin everything.”

Nate frowns. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m somehow out of your league or that I’m better than you in some way. You don’t give yourself enough credit. Plus,” he adds, reaching up to cradle Ray’s face in his hands. “At least you don’t get jealous over stupid things and act like an asshole because of it.”

That makes Ray pause. “Jealous? What were you jealous about?”

He can’t imagine Nate could ever feel threatened by someone else, Ray would have to be out of his mind to look at someone else when he has Nate.

“Before, when I was being a dick. I was jealous that you came over to see Brad and didn’t come say hi to me,” Nate tells him, his ears turning a dark shade of red again as he speaks, and he ducks his head down, letting go of Ray in the process.

Ray blinks, then reaches for Nate before he can retreat too far into his embarrassment. 

“Wow, we really have to work on our communication,” Ray says, then reaches up to tug on Nate’s ear, which is hot under his touch.

Nate bats his hand away, but he’s looking at him again and there is a small grin on his face.

“I’m sorry,” Nate says again.

Ray shakes his head. “The only reason I didn’t come say hi was that I’ve been trying to play it cool and I didn’t want to bother you or for you to think that I was always going to bug you even though you’re working on school stuff. I guess I wanted you to see that I respected your boundaries or some shit like that.”

“You’re never bothering me,” Nate tells him, moving forward to leave a short kiss on Ray’s lips.

Ray can’t help but smile and follow Nate as he pulls back, kissing him again. 

Nate’s hands rest on the back of his neck, his fingers holding a light grip on his hair, and Ray feels the heat rising on his skin and deep within his stomach as they continue.

Nate only pulls away when Ray moves to straddle his thighs.

“Wait,” Nate starts to say, but is cut off when Ray sucks on his bottom lip, causing Nate to grab his hips and hold on tight.

After just another minute of Ray attempting to distract him, he pulls away again. “No, seriously, Ray, one more thing.”

Ray pulls away with a sigh and rests his forehead on Nate’s shoulder.

“We’ve gotta talk about sex.”

Ray groans and attempts to move off of Nate’s lap, feeling the heat that had once been headed south all suddenly burning up his face. But Nate just holds on tighter and keeps Ray where he is.

“We’re already talked about this,” Ray tries to argue. He can tell he sounds whiney, but he can’t help it. Talking about sex in an abstract or even lewd way is fun. Talking about the logistics of his own sex life is just embarrassing.

Nate kisses his cheek. “Well, we’re gonna talk about it again because I think we just learned some new things today.”

He has tried to have this conversation with Ray before and Ray had been able to stutter out his small history of sexual experiences and had insisted that he’d be interested in doing anything. Nate has tried to go into more detail, but Ray has been able to brush it off.

“Don’t you think it ruins the moment to talk about this shit too much?” Ray tries.

But Nate frowns. “Ya know what ruins the moment? Finding out after the fact that I did something you weren’t comfortable with.”

Ray grimaces. “I told you I’m up for anything.”

“Anything?” 

That makes Ray pause.

“What kind of kinky shit are you trying to do here?” Ray asks, a little nervous to hear what kind of secret freak the straight-laced Nate Fick is.

But Nate just chuckles and squeezes his side. “Right now, I’m talking about everything. Hands, mouths, dicks, whether you want to give or receive, if you want to do that at all.”

Ray eyes him for a moment, wondering if he’s joking, but after a moment he realizes that Nate is being completely serious and he can’t help but laugh a little awkwardly.

“I’m not asexual.”

Nate narrows his eyes. “You don’t need to be asexual to not want a cock in your ass.”

Ray nearly chokes, both at the words and the matter-of-fact tone.

He takes a moment to think it over. He’d always just assumed Nate would be the one fucking him. When he’d fantasized about it, it had always been that way. He hadn’t really stopped to think about if that was what he really wanted, or just what he’d expected to happen.

Nate watches him as he thinks, rubbing his thumb against Ray’s hips.

“I don’t know if I’d like it or not,” he eventually admits.

Nate doesn’t look disappointed, just nods his head.

“But I…,” he rushes to continue. “I guess I want to try and see if it’s something I like.”

He looks away, feeling the heat still on his face. Nate kisses his cheek again and Ray can feel his smile against his face.

“What about blowjobs?” Nate pushes forward and Ray can’t help but laugh.

“What about them? The only experience I have there is me putting my mouth on a cock and then five seconds later getting some dude’s jizz in my eye.”

Nate bites his lip to keep from laughing, which is personal growth for him since he’d definitely laughed the first-time Ray had told him that story.

“Ok, so maybe not so much on the giving, what about receiving?”

“Are you asking me if I’m cool with you giving me a blowjob? Is that really what you’re asking me right now?” 

Ray can’t help but look at Nate’s lips. He’s pretty sure that since the day he met Nate about half of all his dreams have featured those full lips around him.

Nate shrugs. “Just trying to be thorough here, and I’m not just talking about blowjobs.”

Ray is pretty sure his brain is about to short circuit. This has to be the least sexy sex talk and yet he’s still getting turned on listening to Nate say all this shit.

“Oh, my god. Can we maybe work up to your tongue in my asshole, make sure I’m into anything else being up there first?”

Nate laughs.

“Also,” Ray continues and grabs Nate’s face because this is important. “I didn’t say no to giving blowjobs. I want to suck your cock, I just can’t promise I’m any good at it.”

It seems like he’s not the only one turned on by their conversation as Nate makes a small, almost desperate noise as he pulls Ray back down, mouth hot and eager against Ray's, and its Ray’s turn to start making desperate noises, as he grips Nate’s short hair in his fingers for just something to hold onto. He can’t help it when he shoves his hips forward and down to grind against Nate.

Nate moves to grab his hips again, gripping him hard and pulling Ray down against him more. His groan against Ray’s mouth vibrates on his tongue and down through his body. 

Ray is feeling a little light-headed when Nate pulls away, kissing his cheek and jaw and neck.

Though he nearly groans in a completely different way when Nate mumbles against his skin, the dreaded question that has ended this every time before.

“What do you want?” Nate asks, leaving a sucking kiss against his neck.

Ray shivers and fists his hand through Nate’s hair just a little bit harder. He knows what not to say, but his mind isn’t supplying him with anything real. 

He grinds down again, hoping to get the message across, but Nate’s hold restricts his movement and Ray nearly whines.

“Fuck, Nate…just…can’t we just dry hump like high schoolers?”

Nate’s chuckle turns into a soft moan when Ray is able to loosen his hold and grind down against him again.

“Yeah, all the fun of coming in your pants without the hassle of an actually satisfying orgasm,” Nate snarks back and Ray tugs a little harder on his hair in retaliation.

“Can I just…” Nate murmurs, pressing his lips against Ray’s neck and his hand on Ray’s lower stomach, his thumb drawing a circle over the button on Ray’s pants.

Ray nearly groans when he realizes that this is what Nate has been trying to ask him all this time, he’s just been wanting Ray to give him permission to touch him.

“Yeah, Christ, Nate. Please.”

Nate doesn’t need telling twice. The position they’re in doesn’t make it easy for him to get Ray’s pants open and out of the way, but when he finally wraps his hand around Ray’s aching cock Ray nearly cries in relief. 

It’s been over two years since anyone has touched him like this, and that had been a quick, uncoordinated shared handjob in the bathroom of a rival school Ray and his debate teammate had been at. Nate’s hand around him is so much different than that. He feels small shocks zinging through his body with every light squeeze of Nate’s hand. Nate’s lips against his overheated skin somehow keep him grounded and cause his heart to pick up speed with every light prick of pain when he sucks against the skin of Ray’s throat.

Suddenly, the perfect pressure of Nate’s hand is gone, and his mouth is no longer sucking kisses into his skin, and Ray is not proud of the whine that comes out without his permission. 

Nate just shushes him and shifts around, until he can push Ray off his lap, down onto the bed. 

Ray only has time to lean up on his elbows before Nate is kneeling between his knees, tugging Ray’s pants down just enough to free his cock, which is red and looking as desperate as he feels. He only has a moment to feel self-conscious when Nate’s hand is back around him in a matter of seconds and Ray’s head falls back down onto the pillow below him. The backs of his thighs are resting on top of Nate’s and while at this position he can’t reach Nate or kiss him, he does have a clear view of Nate’s face which is nice. Especially, because, for some reason, Nate looks nearly as wrecked as Ray feels, which makes no sense, as all the attention given so far has been on Ray. But Nate’s eyes look hazed and his face is flushed and those lips are more red and swollen than ever.

Nate’s eyes move up to meet Ray’s and he grins and Ray’s breath hitches and he thrusts up into Nate’s strokes. He has to close his eyes for a moment, as he tries to catch his breath. 

There’s a light tugging on his shirt and he opens his eyes to see Nate watching him.

“Can I move this?” Nate asks, tugging again at the hem of Ray’s shirt.

Ray licks his lips and nods, simple words failing him at the moment.

He goes to lean up, thinking Nate wants to remove his shirt completely, but Nate just shoves the shirt up to his armpits, dragging his hand back down to his chest. Nate’s hand is soft, his fingers run lightly over a nipple and Ray gasps and his hips jolt up and he’s coming before he can think to warn Nate, but Nate just pumps him through it as Ray’s eyes squeeze shut and he reaches down to grab Nate’s hand that’s still resting on his chest.

Ray doesn’t have time to do more than take a few deep breaths and open his eyes to look up at Nate before there is a loud bang, startling them both.

“Hey, assholes you coming out or – oh shit!” Garza yells as he bursts through Nate’s door and sees them.

Nate immediately gathers Ray in his arms, covering him as much as possible while Ray attempts to curl himself into the fetal position.

“What the fuck?” Ray yells at the same time Q-tip calls out, “Poke, you were right, they are gettin’ busy.”

“Close the fucking door,” Nate tells them, looking over his shoulder to probably send their friends a glare.

“Shit, right,” Garza says, quickly backing up and out of the room closing the door as he goes.

Nate closes his eyes and rests his head against Ray’s shoulder for a moment before lifting himself back up to look Ray in the eye. 

“Are you ok?” he asks, looking more concerned than anyone should after giving Ray one of the best orgasms of his life – not that it’s been a very high bar before now - even with their asshole friends ruining the moment for them. 

Ray attempts to make his brain work again to form some words to assure Nate that he’s fine, that he’s much better than fine, that their friends cannot ruin this moment for him no matter how hard they try.

Instead, he just starts laughing, feeling a small thrill run up and down his spine, and yeah, Ray is feeling better than ok.

Nate narrows his eyes at Ray for a moment, probably wondering if he’s lost it, but eventually, he smiles and leans down to attempt to kiss Ray around his laughter.

When Nate leans back up, Ray looks down and notes the new stain on Nate’s shirt.

“You’ve got my cum on your shirt,” Ray tells him, wrinkling his nose at it, sure that Nate’s heroic attempts at covering Ray from their friend’s gazes is what led to that happening, as most of it had ended up on Ray’s stomach.

Nate looks down at himself for a moment before easily pulling the shirt up over his head and tossing it over by his closet.

Ray can feel the hint of a blush as he looks him over. Nate isn’t overly muscular, but he stays in good shape and Ray feels a little lightheaded at the reminder of just how good looking his boyfriend is.

Nate grins down at him for a moment before biting his lip and looking over to his nightstand.

“I have tissues,” he says, reaching over to grab the box. “But you may want to go to the bathroom to wash your stomach off better.”

Ray nods but doesn’t move to get up or grab a tissue, so Nate goes to wipe his stomach off for him but Ray grabs his wrist.

Nate quirks an eyebrow at him and Ray rushes to explain, so he doesn’t think he has some kind of weird, bodily fluids kink.

“Why clean it up when it’s probably just going to get messy again in a minute?”

Nate doesn’t seem to get the hint so Ray sits up and tugs at the top of Nate’s pants.

“Oh,” Nate says, finally getting where Ray’s head is. “Uh, that’s ok, you don’t have to do anything, you can go get cleaned up. It’s…uh…not gonna take me very long.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Ray says, not stopping his attempts at getting Nate’s pants open. He’s not sure how Nate isn’t doubled over at completely ignoring his own arousal through all of that. 

Ray makes quick work of pushing Nate’s pants down just far enough, the way Nate had done with Ray’s. His first thought at seeing Nate’s cock is that he wants to lick it. But seeing as how close Nate is Ray doesn’t want his second blowjob experience to last as long as the first, and he definitely doesn’t want that to happen with Nate. So, instead, he wraps his fingers around the base of Nate’s cock and pumps twice. Nate hisses at the touch and his body hunches over in response, grabbing Ray’s shoulder for balance.

Ray gives it a few more strokes, running his thumb along the head, before saying, “yeah, I’m definitely gonna suck your cock soon.”

Even more suddenly than Ray’s orgasm had been, Nate gasps then groans, his fingers dig into Ray’s shoulder and his head falls to rest against Ray’s neck, and Ray is glad his shirt is still somewhat being held up under his armpits as his stomach is once again coated.

Nate only takes a few seconds to compose himself before he grabs Ray’s face and kisses him hard, faster and dirtier than he’d expected from a post-orgasm kiss, leaning against him heavily like Nate’s trying to fuse them together, until Ray whines against his mouth, already a little turned on again and it’s just too soon for that. Nate pulls back then, panting a little as he combs his fingers through Ray’s hair. 

The contrast from the hard kiss and the soft fingers in his hair has Ray’s head spinning a little, but he kind of gets where Nate’s head must be at right now. He simultaneously wants to ravish Nate while also wanting to just lay down next to him wrap his arms around him.

“You might actually kill me if you keep saying that,” Nate finally speaks, kissing the side of Ray’s head.

He has to think for a moment at what he’s even said. When he remembers he can’t help but snicker. 

“What? That thing about wanting to suck your cock?” he asks, falsely innocent as he runs a finger along the side of said cock. 

Nate reacts like he’s been shocked, body both retreating from the overstimulation while also pushing his face closer into his neck and digging his fingers into his skin even more. 

He hisses and smacks Ray’s hand away, moving back to give Ray a stern look. It doesn’t do more than make Ray’s smirk bigger.

He doesn’t stop Nate this time when he wipes a tissue across his stomach, attempting to clean Ray up as much as he can.

 

Once they’re a little more presentable - both have their pants pulled back up, Ray’s shirt is pulled back down, and Nate has found a new shirt to pull over his head – Ray feels some of his self-consciousness seep back into his stomach. He’s not sure why, thinks that maybe it has something to do with their friends he’s about to have to deal with once he leaves Nate’s room.

“I guess we should go out there and face them,” Nate says then, grinning wryly down at Ray.

Ray bites his lip and nods, not sure if having Nate there will make it better or worse as their friends tease him. 

But then Nate bends to kiss him soft and sweet for a moment and the warmth that blooms in his chest gives him the small amount of confidence he needs to grab Nate’s hand and take the lead out of the room.

They’re met with applause and wolf-whistles by their asshole friends and Nate just squeezes Ray’s hand a little harder as they join everyone in the living room.

“So,” Brad starts. “How’d it go? Or did these shitheads ruin the mood?”

Ray looks up to Nate, figuring he’ll just follow Nate’s lead on this. Nate is just staring at Brad, clearly unamused. Ray should have guessed Nate would be the type to not want to kiss and tell. 

With a quick gut check, Ray realizes that is not really how he handles things.

“It was fucking hot as shit. Didn’t ruin the mood at all, I barely even noticed anyone came in,” he announces to the room. Everyone, including Nate, groans. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go wash some cum off my stomach.”

“God, why do any of us need to know that?” Walt yells after him, and he just chuckles the whole way to the bathroom.

When he comes back, he checks Nate’s face to see if he’s bothered at all by what Ray has said. But he just hands Ray a drink and tells him that they’ve got next game of beer pong and Ray can’t help but kiss him, which Nate responds to happily.

“Seriously? Is this what we’re gonna have to deal with all the time now?” Poke asks, shaking his head before taking his shot.

Neither of them apologizes for the kiss. Or any of the kisses after that.

Or for the fact that they keep getting handsy and distracted when it’s their turn to play, causing them to lose badly. 

And they definitely don’t apologize for ducking back to Nate’s room for the night just a couple hours later without a word, locking the door behind them this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> I have lots of plans for this series, but if there is anything specific you'd like to see let me know!


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